


The Kiss of Death

by Moraith



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Tragedy, Dissociation, M/M, Non-Consensual Kissing, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-11 01:36:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16466204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moraith/pseuds/Moraith
Summary: In a world where the power of symbolism makes Ryoji and Pharos's kisses deadly, Ryoji mostly retains Pharos's weird personality even after he becomes an alive teen, and both of them are scarier and more evil than in canon, Persona 3 happens. Makoto has a very bad time, then dies, taking everyone else with him.





	The Kiss of Death

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween, everyone! Who wants to sign a petition to replace Ryoji with my OC I like to pretend is the same character? No? Just me? Fair enough.

There’s a creepy little kid in pajamas at the front desk, which seems like a weird thing to run into when arriving at your high school dorm after midnight. He gives Makoto some cryptic and vaguely alarming advice. Makoto is too busy trying to place where he’s seen this kid before to listen that closely to what he’s saying, but thankfully he doesn’t seem bothered by Makoto not talking so he doesn’t have to pretend he heard any of that. The kid presents Makoto with a contract. It is in English for some reason and Makoto cannot be bothered to muddle his way through it this late at night. He’s pretty sure that a contract you can’t read presented to you by a ghost isn’t legally binding, at least if you’re under eighteen, so he goes ahead and puts his name on it.

The kid disappears into the inky darkness, taking his weird little contract with him, and then two teenage girls with guns show up and start yelling. The next few days are the most chaotic and exhausting Makoto has experienced maybe ever. It turns out he has magic powers, which is cool. He has to use those magic powers to explore a giant evil tower that only appears at midnight, makes you sick, and doesn’t have elevators, which is a little less cool.

Mitsuru makes Makoto the leader of the exploration mission. No one except Junpei seems to notice that this is obviously a terrible idea. He does a bad job, but apparently not a bad enough job that Mitsuru will let him stop. Every once in a while, the weird little kid appears in the dead of night in Makoto’s room and talks to himself for a while. His name is Pharos, so he says. Time passes. Lots of things happen. Most of it blurs together into an incomprehensible forgettable mess.

\----

Pharos seems to like sitting on Makoto’s bed. He does it a lot. He doesn’t have any weight or heat, so it’s like he’s not even there. It’s kind of nice, because it makes it easier to ignore him, but it’s unsettling.

Pharos is sitting at the foot of the bed tonight, staring at Makoto with a cheerful carefree smile. “Hi, how are you?”

Makoto blinks sleepily. He can barely keep his eyes open. He isn’t normally this tired on days when he doesn’t go to Tartarus. Even when he’s sick or he’s been staying up all night studying or playing video games or having nightmares, the exhaustion never gets as heavy and bone-deep as this.

Pharos covers his mouth with his hand and chuckles. Makoto squints at him. It seems like Pharos is laughing at him, but he can’t fathom why. _He’s_ not the one sneaking into people’s bedrooms in his pajamas and trying to make small talk.

“You can go back to sleep if you’d like,” Pharos offers. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Makoto considers that offer. If Makoto isn’t awake, what is Pharos going to do? Probably whatever it is he was doing before Makoto woke up. Sitting, maybe. Makoto squints blearily at his floor. There are piles of weapons everywhere that Pharos could steal if it turns out he isn’t a ghost or a hallucination. Makoto wouldn’t even notice. He gets so many of them in Tartarus that he can’t keep track of them all. That might be bad. “Don’t steal anything,” Makoto mumbles, and lies back down to get some more sleep.

When Makoto wakes up, he is no longer tired, or at least he is no longer more tired than he usually is. As far as he can tell from a cursory scan of the room, nothing has been stolen. As far as he can tell from a cursory scan of the room, nothing has even been touched.

A few days later, someone mentions something about security cameras and a glitch in the system. They send Makoto up to check it out, which leads him to discover that everyone has cameras recording their rooms all the time. It’s creepy, but seems pretty much in line with everything else SEES has been doing.

He checks the recordings from his own room for any sign of Pharos. There isn’t any.

\----

It is a warm muggy afternoon in the late summer. Makoto brushes off all of his friends asking him to go to Tartarus and heads straight for his room. They’ve gone every single night for the last week. Even if they haven’t been making much progress, it’s probably okay to take a break. He does not have the energy to talk to anyone or study, even though that would be a better excuse not to go to Tartarus than that he doesn’t feel like it. He cocoons himself in a layer of thick blankets and lies on his bed half-awake until he manages to get to sleep in earnest.

Makoto’s entire face is numb when he wakes up a few hours later. It is dark and Pharos is there, just inches away, smiling. He doesn’t normally get this close. It’s creepy, even if Makoto already knows he isn’t real.

“Hi, there,” Pharos says. He raises a hand to his own face and gently presses his fingers to his mouth. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to wake up this time. You seem awfully tired.”

Makoto blinks and everything blurs. He feels like he’s underwater; everything is shiny and distorted and every time he takes a breath, he chokes. He opens his mouth to gasp in some air and tries, halfheartedly, to say something. Nothing happens. He blinks again. His vision does not clear. He’s not sure why he’s crying, but now that he’s started, he can’t stop. He wipes his face on the blankets, but he’s all choked up again just a few seconds later.

When he looks up, Pharos is a black and white blur at the foot of the bed. “Do you ever feel like the two of us are growing apart, even as we get to know each other more?” He extends a hand toward Makoto. “It’s funny; even though I’m right next to you… I miss you.”

Makoto blinks again. Pharos is standing by the door. “You’ll be facing another trial soon.” Everything gets blurrier and less distinct; the grey Pharos blob shifts, maybe. “I believe you’ll make it through, but... it’s hard, isn’t it? And it’s only been getting harder.”

Suddenly Pharos is closer, wiping the tears from Makoto’s eyes with the pad of his thumb. This is the first time he can remember Pharos touching him; he usually keeps his distance, sitting just out of reach at the end of Makoto’s bed or on the far side of the room. It’s cold. Pharos’s thumb feels like it’s made of ice. Makoto squeezes his eyes shut and chokes out a sob. Pharos coos softly overhead, so close that Makoto feels his icy breath ghosting over his skin. He traces soothing circles on Makoto’s cheek with his ice-cold fingertips.

“Don’t cry, Makoto. I’m sure it will all be over soon.”

When Makoto opens his eyes, weak morning sunlight is streaming through his curtains. The Dark Hour is long over. He must have fallen asleep again. He wipes his eyes on his sleeve. They’re crusty and sore after the crying but once he drags himself out of bed and washes his face, he only looks a little worse than usual.

Junpei tells Makoto he looks like hell warmed over when he gets to class. He gives Junpei a thumbs up, then falls asleep at his desk before Ms. Toriumi even walks through the door.

\----

It is the dawn of November 4th and everything is supposed to be over.

“Good morning. This is the first time we’ve talked during the daytime,” Pharos says, from the foot of Makoto’s bed. He smiles out the window at the empty city streets lit by the weak grey midwinter light. “Nice weather, isn’t it?”

Dread settles in the pit of Makoto’s stomach as he sits up and blinks the sleep away. It wasn’t as if he believed, really, that beating all those Shadows would fix whatever this is, but it was a nice thought to hold on to while it lasted. He follows Pharos’s gaze to the window. It’s not nice weather at all—it’s overcast and it rained overnight so everything is damp and soggy and cold—but he supposes there’s no accounting for taste. Pharos only ever existed in the Dark Hour before; maybe he’s never seen the daylight. If you spent your entire life in bloodstained nightmare hell, even the worst normal day must seem pretty good.

Pharos keeps talking without waiting for Makoto to respond, which is just as well because Makoto isn’t paying much attention. Pharos has a whole speech prepared this time, it seems. Most of what Pharos says goes in one ear and out the other, but the important part sticks: Pharos is leaving. This is goodbye. An invisible weight seems to lift off Makoto’s shoulders, but it can’t be relief, quite, because his stomach still feels heavy and rotten. He stares down at his lap, unable to even look at Pharos.

Pharos has stopped talking, which usually means he’s expecting Makoto to say something. Makoto does not look up to see his expression. “...Yeah,” he mumbles. That probably makes some amount of sense.

“I’ll always treasure our conversations. Even if today is the end, the bond between us can never be severed,” Pharos says. Suddenly, he is much closer. He lifts Makoto’s chin with his fingertips until they are eye-to-eye. “...Remember that.”

Makoto cringes away from Pharos’s touch. Pharos does not follow him, nor does he look disappointed. He laughs lightly, then lays his hand over his own heart with a wistful smile. “It was fun while it lasted,” he says.

When Makoto blinks, Pharos is gone. That’s it, apparently. It all feels too sudden or too soon or too _something._ Makoto’s eyelids droop. All at once, school doesn’t seem that important. He wants nothing more than to go back to sleep. Maybe if he gets lucky, he'll never wake up.

Makoto leans back on his bed and lets his eyes drift shut. As soon as they are closed, a pair of small ice cold lips is pressed against his own. Makoto’s heart flutters, but the usual giddiness that is supposed to go along with a kiss is painfully absent. A dull ache settles into his chest, along with a certainty that something has just gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Makoto’s eyes flutter open as Pharos pulls back, smiling. Pharos presses his fingers gently to his own lips in a way that feels distinctly familiar but that Makoto cannot place. “...Farewell,” Pharos says, and then he is gone. Makoto blinks a few times, wondering if Pharos will reappear. He doesn’t, so Makoto shakes off his discomfort and heads to school.

Somehow, quite a bit of time seems to have passed by the time Makoto successfully leaves his room. It doesn’t feel like it’s been longer than a minute or two at most, but the sun is high in the sky outside the window and there are no students walking the streets outside. Makoto walks down the stairs and heads out toward school. He jogs for a bit, since he’s apparently late, but he starts to get short of breath before long and walks the rest of the way to the monorail. He does not get any less short of breath even though he is sitting down for most of the rest of the journey and isn’t even trying to run.

When Makoto arrives in the classroom, he must look awful, because Ms. Toriumi sends him straight to the nurse’s office without even chewing him out for being late. There, Mr. Edogawa informs him he is having a heart attack and shoves some aspirin at him. It’s real aspirin, even; not some original experimental concoction that will make him feel sicker. Makoto has never seen Mr. Edogawa concerned for anyone before, but he certainly seems tense as he calls an ambulance to take Makoto to the hospital. There is a lot of shouting and people running around over the next few minutes. It all feels kind of dramatic; Makoto feels like he’s dying, but not that much more like he’s dying than he does the rest of the time.

He loses consciousness at some point and wakes up in a hospital bed surrounded by concerned-looking doctors and nurses. They ask him a lot of questions that he can’t quite parse which he answers to the best of his ability anyway. They don’t seem reassured by his answers, so he probably isn’t making sense. He’s used to that.

Mitsuru and her dad show up to take him back to the dorm eventually. The doctors don’t stop them, even though they were telling Makoto a few minutes earlier that he was going to have to stay for at least a week. Must be the perks of being rich, or something. He gets a ride in the Kirijo family’s limo, which is different enough from a normal car that if he keeps his forehead pressed up against the window, he can barely even smell the smoke or hear the crackling of the flames.

Junpei yells at Makoto for ruining SEES’s victory party when Makoto gets back to the dorm. Yukari yells at Junpei for being insensitive, then Mitsuru yells at Yukari for yelling and then people keep joining in until the whole group is fighting. Makoto slips away to his room during the commotion and goes to bed. No one tries to stop him. No one even seems to notice he’s leaving.

He falls asleep wondering vaguely if this means he has to take time off from the track club. If everything is really over and he doesn’t have to spend all his free nights in Tartarus, he should have more energy for club activities in theory. In practice, he apparently just had a heart attack and the doctors told him to stop exercising until he’s had a chance to recover.

It isn’t over, of course. Nothing is over. When the clock strikes midnight, the Dark Hour begins, just like it always does. Ken comes bursting into Makoto’s room to get him up and moving, on Mitsuru’s orders. For a moment, Makoto sees the blurry figure of a small child and assumes Pharos is back. He is not sure whether he is disappointed or not when he discovers he is wrong.

Ken yells something at him and physically pulls him out of bed, then launches into a hasty explanation of what’s going on. He keeps repeating himself without prompting and giving Makoto concerned looks, which Makoto can only assume means he looks as delirious as he is for once. It’s kind of nice, because it means he knows what’s happening, but on the other hand getting condescended to by an elementary schooler makes him feel very stupid. What’s happening is this: they have all been lied to. Shuji Ikutsuki has betrayed SEES and kidnapped Aigis and now he’s doing something dangerous in Tartarus and somebody needs to stop him. Makoto is not entirely certain why he needs to be awake for this, since Ikutsuki doesn’t even have a Persona and Makoto doesn’t know how to repair Aigis, but Ken insists.

Everything between leaving his room and arriving at Tartarus is a blur. When he gets there, he’s leaning heavily on Akihiko’s shoulder and panting hard. Did they run, or can he still not breathe? He’s not sure. Maybe both. Ikutsuki and Aigis are there. Ikutsuki goes on some long-winded incoherent rant about the cult he’s in. It sounds a little like the stuff Pharos used to talk about, so maybe there’s some truth to it. That, or maybe Makoto and Ikutsuki are both the same kind of crazy and Ikutsuki somehow hasn’t noticed he sounds like a maniac.

Eventually, Ikutsuki finishes ranting and sics Aigis on everyone. Makoto gets knocked out, and then he’s on the roof of Tartarus with everyone else and Ikutsuki and Mitsuru’s dad are both dead. There’s a lot of yelling and a lot of crying. Everyone seems upset. Makoto would love to go back to bed, but even he can tell this is a bad time to bring it up, so he waits until everyone is done freaking out and heads back along with the rest of them.

It would have been nice for something good to happen for once. It is not much of a surprise that it didn’t. Tomorrow is another day; more of the same old grind.

\----

There’s a new transfer student in Makoto’s class. He’s annoying. There’s something about him that sets Makoto’s teeth on edge, but he can’t figure out what it is. No one else seems to be bothered except Aigis, and Aigis isn’t quite a person, so that could mean anything. Everyone else loves him and his stupid giant scarf.

When Ryoji’s mouth is full or he’s mumbling, he sounds eerily like Makoto. It’s almost as if they have the same voice, but Ryoji normally puts about a thousand times more energy into everything he says. Everyone in their class, Ryoji included, thinks this is hilarious. Much like everything else about Ryoji, it bothers Makoto more than he can justify. Lots of people sound similar. It’s not like he did it on purpose.

In the aftermath of this discovery, Ryoji and Junpei become instant best friends.  From then on out, Ryoji is inescapable. He keeps coming over to the dorm to hang out with Junpei; every time he does, Makoto gets so jittery he can’t focus on schoolwork or just about anything else. He usually ends up locking himself in his room and staring at a wall until Ryoji is gone.

Ryoji keeps trying to talk to Makoto whenever they cross paths. Makoto refuses to talk back. Ryoji seems to think this is a joke that means they have a friendly rapport. They do not.

\----

Ryoji is over again. He’s staying the night this time, apparently. He and Junpei are both pulling an all-nighter studying and they have decided to do it here instead of wherever it is Ryoji lives. They stay in the lobby for a while, crunching on potato chips and doing a lot more whining than studying. Aigis parks herself across the room from them and spends the evening glaring suspiciously at Ryoji. Makoto, for lack of anything better to do, joins her. It isn’t long before Junpei declares them creepy and tells them to help out or knock it off and make themselves scarce. Aigis ignores them entirely. Makoto goes upstairs to his room to get some sleep. He locks the door, huddles up on his bed, and waits for the sickening anxiety he can only identify as the Ryoji Feeling to fade enough that he can sleep.

Junpei and Ryoji head upstairs to Junpei’s room before Makoto gets to sleep, shouting loud enough that Makoto can hear it past his headphones and the door. It sounds like they’re having fun, which means they probably aren’t doing so hot on the studying front. Ryoji is too close now. The feeling isn’t going to go away. Makoto curls up under the blankets, his shoulders tensing up until they ache, and listens as closely as he can for any sign of movement outside the door. Nothing out of the ordinary happens at all.

Makoto is jerked awake some time later by the distinctive _click_ of his door unlocking, which means he must have successfully fallen asleep at some point. The hinges creak as someone (presumably Aigis again) carefully cracks open the door and steps inside. Makoto shifts so he isn’t facing the wall and cracks his eyes open just enough to make out the harsh glowing digits of his desk clock. It is almost three in the morning.

Makoto lets his eyes drift back shut and tugs his blanket back up over his head. If she wants something, she’ll say something. Ideally, she’ll just stand there and watch this time. Or go away until the sun rises, at least.

The bed springs creak as the mattress shifts under the weight of someone new sitting on the edge of Makoto’s bed. Aigis has never done that before, which is a little alarming, but the proximity makes it obvious that whoever is sitting on his bed isn’t giving off any body heat, so it _is_ Aigis and there isn’t anything to worry about. The person sitting on the bed doesn’t move again until the last of the startled tension dissipates and Makoto is nearly asleep. Just as he’s tipping over the edge of unconsciousness, a soft lilting masculine voice that definitely does not belong to Aigis breaks the silence. “Do you ever get déjà vu?”

Makoto’s heart leaps into his throat. His eyes fly open and for a moment he swears he can see the too-hot stagnant air trapped under the soft blue blanket. He tugs the blanket down with a desperate flail of his arms and finds himself eye to eye with Ryoji Mochizuki, smiling as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“I’m sorry,” Ryoji says, though his expression and his mild tone of voice do nothing to indicate that he is. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Makoto gulps down the dry winter air as the cold stings his cheeks and sends shivers down his spine. Is there heat in this room? Does it get turned off overnight in the winter? He can’t recall, but it must, because the cold is intense and oppressive and the sheen of cold sweat forming on his skin feels as though it’s turning to ice. “The door was locked,” Makoto mumbles, barely louder than a whisper.

“Was it?”

Makoto glances at the door. Was it? He’s sure he locked it; Ryoji is here so he _must_ have locked it. But Aigis or Mitsuru could have unlocked it earlier for whatever reason they’re always snooping in his room. This isn’t exactly _new_. He looks back up at Ryoji’s face, his eyelids drooping. It probably doesn’t matter, after all. Makoto would rather not know than have to interrogate Ryoji. It’s not like Ryoji is doing anything dangerous. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.

“Whatever,” Makoto mumbles. He lets his eyes drift shut again and listens to his heart pounding in his ears as he tries to will himself back to sleep.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” Ryoji says. Makoto cracks his eyes open again. He doesn’t especially care why Ryoji is here, but Ryoji seems determined to have a conversation. Maybe if it looks like he’s listening, Ryoji will leave faster. “There isn’t any special reason behind it. I just get this feeling…” Ryoji trails off, his bland smile softening and turning fonder. He reaches out a hand and tangles his fingers in Makoto’s hair. Ryoji’s fingernails scrape against Makoto’s scalp with a gentle pressure that ought to be soothing, but isn’t. It’s too intimate, too sudden, too entirely unwelcome.

Ryoji’s hand is warm, but the warmth doesn’t stick; his fingers leave behind trails of icy cold, as if his hands are stealing the heat from Makoto’s skin as they move. Makoto’s breath hitches and his blood turns to ice in his veins.

He surges upright and slams his fist into Ryoji’s mouth. Ryoji’s teeth cut through his lip and send droplets of blood splattering all over Makoto’s fist and face and blankets as his head snaps backward. Ryoji’s grip on Makoto’s hair tightens painfully for a moment before he draws his hand back and presses his fingers to his bloody lip. The blood looks too dark in the pale moonlight, almost black. Ryoji lifts his fingers up in front of his face to inspect the blood coating their tips, then smiles at Makoto, fonder than ever. Makoto meets Ryoji’s gaze with too-wide eyes, his breath ragged and his hands trembling.

Ryoji slips his bloody fingers back into Makoto’s hair and tugs him forward gently and firmly. Makoto freezes. He wants to fight back, but he suddenly cannot recall how to do it. He wills his body to move and force Ryoji away, but it doesn’t. His hands lie limp and useless at his sides while his legs stay firmly in place under the blankets. He has no choice but to allow Ryoji to pull him in, despite every alarm bell he has in him sounding at once.

Ryoji leans in, almost protectively, and presses an affectionate kiss to Makoto’s forehead. “Sleep well, Makoto,” he murmurs.

Ryoji pulls back and shifts his hands onto Makoto’s shoulders. He pushes Makoto down until he’s flat on his back on the bed, then gently pulls the blanket back over him. Makoto watches his own chest rise and fall with rapid shallow breaths as Ryoji stands up and walks to the door. The surging adrenaline is too much for him to sleep through, but he manages to make himself pass out by hyperventilating. That’s just as good, probably.

The next morning, Makoto wakes up to the harsh beeping of his alarm clock. He feels grimy and sluggish and more exhausted than he’s been in a long time. He drags himself out of bed feeling like a walking corpse. His blanket sticks to him and gets dragged off the bed as he hauls himself over to his mirror. There’s a dark smudge on his forehead and a bit of something crusty stuck in his hair. Both of them flake off easily when Makoto touches them and even the dark flakes seem to disappear as soon as they’re off him. They’re probably blending into the other grime on the floor. It’s not as clean as it could be. Makoto has been meaning to clean his room for a long time now—weeks at least, months, maybe—but it just keeps not happening.

Makoto slept in his school uniform, so at least he doesn’t have to deal with changing clothes. He grabs his headphones and his phone and his keys and his wallet and shuffles out into the hallway. It is as dead quiet as ever. Everyone else has already left for school without him, as usual. Makoto clips his headphones on his ears and turns up the volume until it’s almost painful. He staggers down the stairs, wondering as he passes the kitchen when the last time he ate breakfast was.

There’s something unsettling about the dorm’s lobby when there’s nobody in it. There are places for people to be and no people in them. It’s like someone took a hotel and fired all the staff but kept it open anyway. The only one Makoto has ever seen at the little reception desk is Pharos, and that probably wasn’t even real. He signs himself in and out in the little logbook on the desk every day anyway, just in case. The student handbook says you’re supposed to, if you live in the dorms, so the faculty can keep track of where the students are in case of an emergency. He’s never seen anyone else do it, which he can’t blame them for. It’s a pain. Besides, they’re supposed the ones cleaning up the emergencies when they happen, not the ones getting caught helpless.

He passes by the tiny TV in the corner of the sitting area—always on, never being watched by anyone—and writes his name and the date. The entire book is full of page after page of nothing but his name next to dates. Every page except this one. He can’t help but notice that someone else used it yesterday. Ryoji Mochizuki’s name is pencilled in right above Makoto’s most recent entry. His handwriting is thinner and more careful than Makoto’s, which has never been neat and has only gotten sloppier since he transferred. Ryoji didn’t sign out this morning, which seems irresponsible. What if someone actually checked this thing and thought he was still here?

Makoto hovers the pen over the book. Maybe he should do it? No one looks at this logbook, but if Ryoji signed in, it feels weird not to sign him out too. It’s like he’ll be here forever. Makoto rubs his forehead with his left hand. He sets down the pen without writing anything else, then slips his hands in his pockets and heads for the door.

Makoto’s headphones get yanked off as he’s stepping out of the dorm. He freezes in place, one foot out the door, and slowly turns his head. Ryoji is smiling at him, holding his headphones triumphantly. Makoto turns around and slips his hands into his pockets. He eyes his headphones, still audibly blasting music, then flicks his gaze to Ryoji’s mouth. It’s fine. There’s no blood, no scab, no nothing.

Junpei swoops into view and slings his arm around Ryoji’s shoulders. “This guy wouldn’t leave the dorm until he saw you,” Junpei says, rolling his eyes theatrically. “I feel like we’ve been waiting here forever. How are you not late every day?”

Ryoji’s brow furrows. “More importantly, are you okay? Sick, maybe? You look exhausted…” He drops Makoto’s headphones in favor of pressing his palm against Makoto’s forehead. Makoto is too tired to bristle or squirm away, but a prickling irritation settles in under his skin as Ryoji touches him. It feels fine. It isn’t cold and it doesn’t hurt. “You’re not warm…”

Junpei groans impatiently. “Who cares, man? He’ll be fine. He sleeps through half our classes anyway…” He drops his arm from around Ryoji’s shoulder and tugs sharply on his scarf. “Get a move on, Mochizuki! Let’s go!”

Ryoji makes a playful exaggerated choking noise, then trails after Junpei with a laugh, leaving Makoto standing alone in the doorway again. Makoto stands motionless staring at the wall until Junpei and Ryoji are out of earshot. He blinks a few times, walks back over to the logbook, and signs Ryoji out. His hands are shaking so it’s not the most legible thing in the world, but it’s not as if anyone is going to read it.

\----

The weak winter sunlight filters through the windows in Makoto’s classroom. He and Ryoji are on cleaning duty after school today. It’s been a little while since Makoto has been forced to interact with Ryoji. Junpei, at least, seems to have gotten the message that they don’t get along. Gekkoukan High School and Ryoji himself, it seems, have not. Makoto is wiping down the desks while Ryoji cleans the erasers out the window. The open window is letting freezing air into the room, but Ryoji doesn’t seem to mind. Makoto adjusts his jacket in the hopes that it will somehow magically get thicker and keep out the cold. It doesn’t.

He cleans on autopilot without thinking or being aware of himself at all until he snaps back to reality at the other end of the room with a broom in his hands and Ryoji inches from his face, smiling. The window is closed now, and probably has been for a while. The air is still freezing cold.

“You get really into things, huh? It’s like you could barely hear me…” Ryoji marvels. He reaches out a hand and ghosts his fingers over Makoto’s cheek. “Do you know what time it is?”

Makoto does not know what time it is. It’s a little darker than it was the last time Makoto was paying attention. It can’t have taken that long to clean this place up, surely. Though if Ryoji was watching him and not helping at all, maybe it took longer than usual. Whatever the answer is, it’s hardly worth thinking about. “It’s time to party,” Makoto says dully. He leans away from Ryoji’s hand and gives it an unimpressed sidelong look.

Ryoji does not hesitate to draw his hand back. He continues, unruffled. “It’s almost sunset.” He leans in toward Makoto, his smile growing wider and more eager. “Have you ever watched the sunset from the school’s rooftop?”

Makoto blinks sleepily at Ryoji. He hasn’t. He is certain that if he admits as much, Ryoji will drag him up there and make him watch it. “Aren’t you supposed to do that stuff with your girlfriend?”

Ryoji laughs brightly. “Well, _maybe_ , but I don’t have a girlfriend, so…” Ryoji grabs Makoto by the wrist. His hand is warm. He pries the broom out of Makoto’s other hand and leans it sloppily up against the wall. “We’ll put it away later, promise. I’m not gonna let you get in trouble.” He drags Makoto to the door and through the hallway despite Makoto’s quiet protests. Ryoji takes the stairs up to the roof two at a time with a spring in his step, leaving Makoto stumbling dizzily after him.

The rooftop is as desolate as ever. This late in the day and this late in the year, nobody else is here. The plants, which finally seemed to be perking up after Elizabeth asked Makoto to water them, are wilting and shriveling again in the winter cold. Makoto’s breath forms thin white clouds in the freezing air. Ryoji’s does not. The windmills on the far side of campus stand tall on the horizon, their blades wavering slightly in the feeble breeze, but never turning in earnest.

Ryoji takes a deep breath of stinging cold air when he steps out the door, then smiles broadly at Makoto and squeezes his wrist. Makoto’s fingers twitch involuntarily. Makoto stares blankly at Ryoji’s hand on his wrist. It feels colder now than it did before, as if Ryoji had stuck his hand in ice water.

“Feeling any better, Makoto?”

Makoto looks back up at Ryoji’s face. There’s something off about it, he’s pretty sure. Makoto’s eyes keep catching on his smile. It’s not that it doesn’t look natural;  there’s a certain effortless contentment to it that looks more genuine than any smile Makoto has seen in years. Maybe that’s it. Maybe the problem is that Ryoji looks happier now than Makoto has been in his entire life.

The irritation needling at Makoto as he stares dully at Ryoji’s mouth is the strongest emotion he’s felt since the last time Ryoji got under his skin. It is not a strong feeling in the grand scheme of things, but when it is the only peak in a flat expanse of numbness, giving into it is as inevitable as anything could ever be.

Makoto’s hands curl into fists. Ryoji’s icy grip on his left wrist numbs his skin and makes his own arm feel detached and painfully hot. His right hand twitches toward Ryoji, just slightly. Makoto intends to hit him. It doesn’t happen. Hitting him isn’t _enough_ . Hitting him didn’t do _anything_ last time. Before he knows what he’s doing, Makoto is grabbing a fistful of Ryoji’s shirt and kissing him like their lives depend on it.

Ryoji’s lips feel like ice against Makoto’s. The intense cold spreads out through the rest of his body. His head goes numb. His knees buckle as the oppressive unbearable cold flushes out what remains of the strength in his limbs. Ryoji’s arms shift, though Makoto’s arms are too numb for him to feel Ryoji’s hand leave his wrist. Ryoji tangles his fingers in Makoto’s hair and keeps Makoto’s mouth pressed firmly to his own. Everything goes cold, then numb and distant, then, finally, black.

\----

It is dark and cold and icy fingers are tenderly stroking Makoto’s hair. Makoto’s head is in Ryoji’s lap and Ryoji is smiling down at him. The windmills on the other end of campus turn lazily in the distance, lit up in the darkness by the pale glow of the moon. This feels like a dream, but the last thing Makoto remembers _is_ being here with Ryoji, so it could be real, maybe.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you yet,” Ryoji murmurs. He leans down, tucks a lock of Makoto’s hair behind his ear, and whispers, “Don’t be afraid. Time delivers us all equally to the same end.”

Makoto’s body becomes unbearably heavy. His eyelids drift shut despite everything he does to keep them open. The cold seeps through his skin and settles in his bones and everything fades away.

He wakes up in the nurse’s office. Ryoji is long gone. Mr. Edogawa says he’ll talk to the school officials about Makoto’s health in the weird uncharacteristically serious way he’s been talking whenever Makoto comes in to get poisoned recently. Makoto nods, then leaves the office and heads back to the dorm to sleep.

\----

It turns out Ryoji is part of Ikutsuki’s cult. More specifically, he’s the god of Ikutsuki’s cult. Also, he’s the same person as Pharos. In retrospect, at least some of that should have been obvious. Ryoji is pretty upset about the whole thing, which strikes Makoto as funny. Not funny enough to laugh at, but funny enough to remember, anyway. He tells SEES that the world is about to end, tells them they can kill him if it will make them feel better, then disappears for a month. No one talks about it much, but it seems like everyone is thinking about it a lot. The weight of the entire world is on their shoulders now. It is crushing. Makoto was not afraid of dying for most of his life. Now that he’s afraid, the world is ending. It’s unfair.

When Ryoji comes back from his month-long vacation, he practically begs Makoto to kill him. Privately, he thinks Ryoji should have done his little I’m-a-monster routine and given them a chance a month ago if he really wanted them to go through with it, but he doesn’t say anything in case Ryoji gets the wrong idea. Ryoji doesn’t seem very much like Pharos at all like this. He’s frantic and distressed and self-absorbed. He is trying to be frightening and he is not.

Makoto refuses to kill him. Ryoji keeps on whining, so Makoto kicks him out of his room. The end is one more month away. Makoto tries to make the most of it.

\----

Makoto is wide awake at midnight on January 30th. He’s been practicing staying up late so he isn’t falling asleep for his suicide mission. A fight for the fate of the universe sounds like something you ought to be lucid for. When the Dark Hour hits, Ryoji is sitting on the windowsill, smiling. Ryoji insisted, back when he first regained his memories, that he and Pharos were the same person. It seemed laughable at the time; a bald-faced lie or an embarrassing misunderstanding. Pharos was dead, Makoto thought; dead and gone and replaced by whatever it was Ryoji was supposed to be.

This is Pharos. Whether or not Ryoji was Pharos before, it could not be more obvious that he is now. Makoto is not expecting to see him, but he is also not _not_ expecting it. This is just the kind of thing Pharos liked to warn him about before he left. It is dangerous and hopeless and an unimaginable number of lives are at stake. Even if he weren’t the star of the show, Pharos wouldn’t pass up a chance to wax poetic about it.

Makoto blinks deliberately at Ryoji (Pharos?) to acknowledge his presence, then raises a hand in greeting. “Hey. You ready for tomorrow?”

Ryoji nods. “I am. Are you?”

Makoto shrugs. Ryoji laughs.

“I meant to kill you before things got this far,” Ryoji says. He presses his fingers gently to his lips. “...though I’m not sure I knew what I was doing.” He gazes out the window at the nearly-full moon hanging low in the sky. “There’s still time. I know you’re afraid.”

Makoto sits down on his bed with his hands in his pockets. “Are you trying to get me to kiss you again?”

“Am I?”

Is he? It’s hard to say. He’s definitely trying to convince Makoto to die, but there are plenty of other ways to do that. Makoto says “That’s gay,” just to be sure. He follows Ryoji’s gaze out the window. The moon is huge. The streets are lined with the bodies of Apathy Syndrome victims. They aren’t dead yet, but they might as well be. The world feels like it’s already over. “...Maybe tomorrow.”

“I see.”

The two of them lapse into silence. Makoto keeps expecting Ryoji to disappear or start talking again. It’s what Pharos would have done. But he doesn’t. Not until the Dark Hour ends. When the lights come back on, Ryoji is gone. Makoto stares at the windowsill where he was sitting, waiting for him to reappear. Once Makoto is fairly certain Ryoji is staying gone, he flicks the lights off and collapses into bed for as good a night of sleep as he can get on the day before the world ends.

\----

Ryoji was right, it turns out; SEES can’t win. They all fight as hard as they can, but it’s no use. Nyx Avatar only gets stronger, no matter what they throw at it. The moon opens up. The world starts to die. Everyone is battered and exhausted. Nyx exerts such overwhelming pressure that none of them can even stand up. None of them except Makoto.

Igor calls him to the Velvet Room and gives him his ultimate power. He can hear the voices of everyone he’s been spending time with over the past year encouraging him. Their voices echo inside him, settling in his heart and making him stronger bit by bit. Igor tells him he can do the impossible. He intends to.

Makoto’s body floats up to the sky while his friends lie helpless on top of Tartarus. They beg him to stay, not to go on without them. He has no choice.

Being near Nyx is enough to tear Makoto apart. He’s only holding on through sheer stubbornness. It takes him a few tries and some words of encouragement from below to withstand Nyx’s magic gracefully. Once he does, the next step is to stop her. He falters. He has never felt as profoundly small as he does in this moment. He feels like a grain of sand on a beach trying to stop a tidal wave.

Nyx gets hazy, her massive form fading into the darkness around her until Makoto is alone in the void. A horrible certainty creeps up Makoto’s spine. He hesitated and now it’s over. There’s not going to be another chance. The world is ending. He couldn’t save them.

Ryoji steps forward out of the inky blackness, his hand hovering over his heart, smiling. “Hi, Makoto. It’s tomorrow.”

Makoto blinks away the desperate exhausted tears forming in his eyes. He tucks his hands into his pockets and shuffles his feet. “...Yeah.” He pauses, glancing behind him at nothing but more darkness. “Didn’t you turn into a big monster?”

“I did,” Ryoji confirms. He gazes off into space. “And now I’m here.”

“...Huh.” Makoto scratches the back of his neck. His fingernails are sharp and jagged. It stings a little. “I’m not going to let anyone die.”

“Even if you kill me, nothing will change,” Ryoji says mildly. “It’s too late. I’m sorry. I wish I had better news.”

Makoto steps forward into Ryoji’s personal space. He gazes dully up at Ryoji’s face. “I’m not going to let anyone else die,” he insists.

Ryoji’s smile softens. He gently brushes Makoto’s hair out of his face. “You have to, Makoto. It’s over.”

Makoto blinks. “...Nah.”

He reaches up and takes Ryoji’s face in his hands. He kisses Ryoji—no, Pharos; no, _Death_ —hungrily. Unbearable cold bears down on him. It fills every crevasse of his body bit by bit until he is completely numb. Numb, but alive. He does not let go. He _can’t_ let go until he has taken in every bit of magic Ryoji has in him. If he has to die a billion times over to keep everyone else alive, he’ll do it. He can do anything.

For once, finally, Ryoji buckles first. There comes a point, when your heart has stopped and you are freezing down to your bones and you can’t see or hear or move or think, when even Death cannot make you any more dead. And when Death can’t make you any more dead and you’re still there, there’s nowhere to go but up. The warmth returns to Makoto’s limbs, slowly but surely. Ryoji faints, having spent all his energy on Makoto and gotten nowhere. Makoto drops him on the ground in a heap, then marches forward into the darkness, his hands balled into tight fists. One down, one to go.

\----

It turns out Nyx doesn’t have a mouth. That was probably something Makoto ought to have noticed when she first appeared, but he had other things on his mind at the time. Even if she did, he suspects the particular magic that made kissing Ryoji work wouldn’t have done the trick with something that didn’t used to literally be a part of him, but it’s nice to fantasize.

Despite his determination and the magic burning inside his veins and his victory against Nyx’s Avatar, Nyx and Erebus in combination were too much. One person, no matter how hungry and how desperate and how willing to tear himself apart, cannot override the will of the whole of humanity. And so now here’s here. Not dead, quite, but close enough that it hardly matters; immobile and semi-conscious in a distant corner of who knows where. Everything hurts. His vision is blurry. He’s seeing too many things at once from too many angles and he can’t focus. Time blurs together even more than it ever did before. Erebus’s roaring echoes through his head until he can’t hear himself think.

Far away, some part of Makoto, whatever scrap of who he used to be is left over after he took Death inside him and tore himself to pieces, screams for revenge and begs for someone, anyone to help him. The rest of him hangs limp and useless and cold in the gap between the physical and the symbolic. Even when that gap produces a monster, Makoto cannot find it in him to react.

“No one can hear you, Makoto,” Ryoji says. Makoto shifts until Ryoji’s smiling face comes into focus. He is sorely tempted to spit in Ryoji’s face, but he is fairly certain that is no longer possible. “No one except me.” Ryoji cocks his head to the side slightly. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

“I won’t let anyone die.”

Ryoji blinks. “I see.” He takes a step backward and suddenly Makoto can’t focus on him at all anymore. “Maybe tomorrow.”

It does not feel like an entire day could possibly have passed by the time Ryoji returns. It only feels like a moment since the last time he was here. Before Ryoji has a chance to make the same offer again, Makoto cuts him off. “I won’t let anyone die,” he repeats.

Ryoji has no visible reaction. His serene smile does not so much as twitch. “I see.”

As Ryoji steps back into the darkness again, Makoto begins to chant the same phrase over and over again so muscle memory can save him if the pain drives even those words from his mind.

Some time later, someone else appears. Many other someones appear, with Aigis leading them. Makoto cannot tell where they are. He does not know how he is able to see them. He does not know if they can hear him. He does not know if he would have anything to say if they could. He does not know if he can say anything at all now, other than his endless mantra.

He looks on as they, however temporarily, conquer Erebus. A distant feeble hope blooms in his chest. For the first time in he is not sure how long, he nearly feels human again. He manages to gather himself enough to stop repeating the same promise over and over again. There was more, wasn’t there? There was something else besides not letting anyone die.

Ryoji steps forward out of the darkness. “Would you like my help?”

Makoto shakes his head urgently. He _can_ shake his head. He has a body. He’s alive. Everyone is here. All he has to do is hold on a little while longer and then he can go back home.

Ryoji smiles sadly at him. “No one can hear you, Makoto. No one except me.”

Makoto shakes his head again. That can’t be true. If they’re here, then they must know. And if they know, they’re going to do something. They already won. Sure, Erebus will come back, but if they beat it once, they can beat it again, can’t they?

Ryoji’s face falls. He steps closer and brushes his fingertips gently over Makoto’s cheek. They are cold, still, but there is a distant warmth blooming inside them, far beneath his skin. “I’m sorry, Makoto,” he murmurs.

Aigis and Yukari and Junpei and everyone are talking about how much better they feel now that everything’s over, knowing he’s watching over them. He doesn’t know what that means. He can barely see them. Even if he were watching, there’s nothing he can do for them when he’s like this. He thinks, perhaps selfishly, that if they really want his help, they should set him free so he can at least move.

Aigis and the rest turn around and leave, retreating into the darkness beyond Makoto’s field of vision, much like Ryoji has dozens of times before. That distant part of him screaming for revenge is not so distant now. It fills him to bursting and makes him blind and incoherent with overwhelming betrayal and hurt. He screams and thrashes against his bindings, the wires scoring deep bloody lines in his flesh.

Ryoji wipes away the tears flowing from Makoto’s eyes with warm, gentle fingers. In the moment before Makoto’s vision blurs again, Ryoji looks utterly heartbroken. The pity in his eyes sends Makoto’s fury soaring to new heights. He shrieks wordlessly until his own screaming and Erebus’s roars blur together and become indistinguishable.

Ryoji wraps Makoto in a warm soothing embrace. Though Makoto’s fury has not abated in the slightest, Ryoji is stronger than him. He can’t shake him off. Slowly, steadily, Ryoji’s skin cools, the heat seeping away into the void bit by bit until he’s cold as ice. Ryoji presses his icy forehead to Makoto’s. The cool skin against Makoto’s own makes him feel feverish, delirious, like maybe he’s overreacting because there’s something _wrong_ with him. Ryoji draws the anger out of Makoto along with the last of the warmth, leaving Makoto cold and hollow and empty, sobbing so hard he can’t breathe.

Ryoji kisses the tears off Makoto’s cheeks and murmurs his name like it’s something fragile. Makoto’s sobbing quiets as his lungs begin to fail. He is dying, he knows. It is selfish, he thinks, to be dying. With the last of his strength in his feeble aching lungs, Makoto whispers, “Is it tomorrow yet?”

Ryoji presses closer to Makoto and says, “If you’d like.”

He is so close now that Makoto can feel his own warm breaths getting trapped between himself and Ryoji’s ice cold skin. He doesn’t want to die, especially. He doesn’t want to die, but if the only alternative is _this_ , what choice does he have? He does not have the strength to speak. Instead, he shifts just slightly so his forehead is bumped up against Ryoji’s again and thinks with as much force as he possibly can, as if it would make a difference, _I don’t want to die._

Ryoji lets out a quiet dreamy sigh. “Nobody does. Funny isn’t it? How they all do it anyway.” He ruffles Makoto hair, then presses his freezing lips to Makoto’s one last time. Makoto’s blood turns to ice. Time slows to a crawl. Darkness creeps in around the edges of his vision. He can’t quite think straight enough to be frightened, though he understands that what is happening to him is frightening. He is dying, and this time it is real. There is no surviving this. There is no coming back.

Makoto’s too-cold limbs go numb, starting from his fingertips and spreading inward until he can’t feel anything other than the freezing pressure of Ryoji’s mouth against his. His eyes drift shut when his face goes numb, which is just as well. The whole world was going black anyway.

Makoto dies in the void, cold and tired and alone. The Seal begins to crumble the moment he is no longer fighting to hold it together. Towering golden gates, impenetrable mere seconds before, turn to dust and pebbles. Erebus, newly free, charges forward. Nyx awakens in the midst of a deafening golden cascade which nobody in the world lives to hear.

Nyx’s Avatar, in a human form born from some twisted inhuman sentimentality, looks on, smiling. “It was fun while it lasted,” he says to nobody. The world crashes down around him, eaten away to nothing in moments. His smile grows wider as Nyx’s unstoppable curse, having torn through every last creature that can truly be called alive, bears down on him. “...Farewell.”


End file.
